Acclimatising
#1
Acclimatising
You leave the flooring in the room for a couple of days before installing it, right? How do you know it's at its shortest or longest stage when you actually do the installing? What if you leave it a 1/4 inch out from the wall but it could still contract to more than 1/2 an inch out? You'd have to make sure the baseboard or quarter round covers at least 1/4 of the floor wouldn't you?
Paul
Paul
#2
Acclimation is a little more then sticking it in a room for a couple of days. I have had to let a floor sit for 2 months to acclimate, because it was so wet with moisture content.
You need a moisture meter and a hygrometer to acclimate wood flooring.
It isn't a how much time thing, it is a how much moisture or lack of moisture thing. The moisture content of the wood needs to come to equilibrium, where it is either not gainning more moisture content or it is no longer losing moisture content.
Check with the manufacturer, but the usual rule is, the expansion gap at the perimeter is as much as the floor is thick. A ¾" thick flooring, gets a ¾" expansion gap.
Say your floor gains moisture content after it has been installed, being hydroscopic it swells with the gain. Each board swells 1/32 of an inch across the width. say you have 22 foot long room which is 96 rows of 2¼ wide flooring. If each board grows 1/32 of an inch, in those 96 boards the floor is going to grow with swell 1½ inches.
Now do you understand why wood flooring or any flooring for that matter is not just a bring it in and slap it on the floor, type of job.
You need a moisture meter and a hygrometer to acclimate wood flooring.
It isn't a how much time thing, it is a how much moisture or lack of moisture thing. The moisture content of the wood needs to come to equilibrium, where it is either not gainning more moisture content or it is no longer losing moisture content.
Check with the manufacturer, but the usual rule is, the expansion gap at the perimeter is as much as the floor is thick. A ¾" thick flooring, gets a ¾" expansion gap.
Say your floor gains moisture content after it has been installed, being hydroscopic it swells with the gain. Each board swells 1/32 of an inch across the width. say you have 22 foot long room which is 96 rows of 2¼ wide flooring. If each board grows 1/32 of an inch, in those 96 boards the floor is going to grow with swell 1½ inches.
Now do you understand why wood flooring or any flooring for that matter is not just a bring it in and slap it on the floor, type of job.
#4
What is going to tell you it is at it's widest??
Wood is hydroscopic, like a sponge.
True, it is better to install a wood flooring wet, more so then installing it dry, below acual living conditions.
If it is real wet, come winter time and the heater is up and running, drying out the wood further, some pretty big gaps are going to occur. Then come summer time, it may not gain the exact higher then normal moisture content and your left with gaps in the summer too. This is all relative to a home that is not climate controlled, with a HVAC system, just like old houses that were built before we had HVAC systems, Massive gaps in the winter, and some cupping in the summers were dealt with. This movement of the seasons loosened the boards from their fasteners. Sqeak, pop, snap, are common noises an old floor makes
If you install a floor too, dry, come the higher humidity and you have a floor that will be tented / buckled off the floor, and tear out is the only solutuion. So in my opinion. If it must be done, install the wood wet, is better then too dry.
Here is a perfect example. I'll have to show it in a couple of replies, because it will only let me include a limited amount of pictures in a single post.
I dry fit a couple of boards for the homeowner to see and get an idea what the flooring is going to look like installed and set my hygrometer on it, to determine what the wood should read in Moisture Content.(MC) This is their normal range the homeowner likes to live in
Now, when I dropped the wood off for acclimation this was my base reading
This is what I get after 3 days of acclimation
Continued....
Wood is hydroscopic, like a sponge.
True, it is better to install a wood flooring wet, more so then installing it dry, below acual living conditions.
If it is real wet, come winter time and the heater is up and running, drying out the wood further, some pretty big gaps are going to occur. Then come summer time, it may not gain the exact higher then normal moisture content and your left with gaps in the summer too. This is all relative to a home that is not climate controlled, with a HVAC system, just like old houses that were built before we had HVAC systems, Massive gaps in the winter, and some cupping in the summers were dealt with. This movement of the seasons loosened the boards from their fasteners. Sqeak, pop, snap, are common noises an old floor makes
If you install a floor too, dry, come the higher humidity and you have a floor that will be tented / buckled off the floor, and tear out is the only solutuion. So in my opinion. If it must be done, install the wood wet, is better then too dry.
Here is a perfect example. I'll have to show it in a couple of replies, because it will only let me include a limited amount of pictures in a single post.
I dry fit a couple of boards for the homeowner to see and get an idea what the flooring is going to look like installed and set my hygrometer on it, to determine what the wood should read in Moisture Content.(MC) This is their normal range the homeowner likes to live in
Now, when I dropped the wood off for acclimation this was my base reading
This is what I get after 3 days of acclimation
Continued....
#5
Now this is the reading I get 2½ weeks after dropping the floor off, to start the acclimation. Notice the big difference from my base line I took when I dropped the flooring off?
Had I gone ahead and installed the flooring at 7.9, this is what would have happened. See the buckled floor and the cupping from compression set?
Had I gone ahead and installed the flooring at 7.9, this is what would have happened. See the buckled floor and the cupping from compression set?
#6
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Hey C.D.W., Is that reading on the second photo down the moisture content in the wood or the sock??
..........couldn't resist....I think we all need to smile every now and then .
I agree with C.D.W. You really need to let that floor acclimate more then a few days. The amount of time really varies from place to place a climate to climate. I will not get into when I would lay a flore (dry or wet) but do a search, and ask around people in your area, there are a lot of varying opinions but ultimately everything depends on the climate where you are. Best of luck to you
..........couldn't resist....I think we all need to smile every now and then .
I agree with C.D.W. You really need to let that floor acclimate more then a few days. The amount of time really varies from place to place a climate to climate. I will not get into when I would lay a flore (dry or wet) but do a search, and ask around people in your area, there are a lot of varying opinions but ultimately everything depends on the climate where you are. Best of luck to you